United States
During the ten and a half years that Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan, as tens of thousands of troops have rotated in and out of the combat zone, only one soldier has ever been captured by the Taliban. His name is Bowe Bergdahl, and since June 30, 2009, he has been America’s last living Prisoner of War.
Bowe Bergdahl grew up on a dirt road that winds through a narrow river valley a few miles outside of town of Hailey, Idaho. The town of about 8,000 guards the highway to the ski resorts of Sun Valley where billionaires and movie stars spend their ski vacations. Bowe’s mother, Jani, home schooled him and his older sister, and Bowe spent years studying martial arts and fencing, becoming particularly accomplished at the epée. After a period of wandering, Bowe joined the Army at age 22, and soon after completing his training shipped out for Afghanistan. “He saw Afghanistan as a humanitarian mission,” Bowe’s father Bob says. “It was the highest ground for an American soldier.”
Source: TIME
Afghanistan
A child stands with his father as they wait to receive blankets and winter jackets from a German aid organization at a camp for internally displaced Afghans in Kabul, Feb, 20. More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan’s coldest winter in years
Musadeq Sadeq / AP
Source: MSNBC
Afghanistan
“Patrols are a dangerous part of the war in Afghanistan, and in the Arghandab Valley during the summer of 2010 they were particularly punishing. It was during the surge of U.S. troops and the violence was edging higher. I had arranged to photograph a series of portraits of Afghan National Army soldiers at the end of a joint patrol with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne. The platoon was tired and many of them wore expressions that showed the strain of the days.Yet the face of this one soldier, Ghulam Hidar, stood out: the distant stare of a young man who has seen nothing in his life but conflict.
To me, the intensity of his face captures the nervousness and fear of a war that has gone on much longer than the past decade. I am moved by his stare and often even disturbed by it. In his eyes I see something that anyone exposed to this war has felt so many times before.” - Kevin Frayer
July 2010, From Afghanistan: The Photographs That Moved Them Most
Source: TIME
Afghanistan
“A young girl soon after dawn in the village of Ghulam Ali on the Shamali Plain. Fighting between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, along with massive US air strikes, made the plain a critically dangerous place to live.
This image—or maybe this girl—always makes me ask: Who are you? Are you still alive? What are you doing now, 10 years later? Do you still live in Afghanistan? Do you still live in your village on the Shamali Plain, north of Kabul? Are you married? Have you ever seen this photograph? Would you let me photograph you now?” - Seamus Murphy
November 2001, From Afghanistan: The Photographs That Moved Them Most
Source: TIME
Nangarhar, Afghanistan
A young girl attends one of the thousands of community based schools, supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund to make formal education accessible to children.
UN Photo/Roger Lemoyne
Source: Flickr / un_photo
Afghanistan
An Afghan boy leans against a wall as he cries on the outskirts of Kabul. Afghanistan is at the bottom of the Mothers’ Index, compiled by the nonprofit group Save the Children, which shows that mothers and their children endure “grim conditions,” with one in six kids dying before the age of five, and one in three suffering from malnutrition.
Shah Marai-AFP/Getty Images
Source: TIME
Afghanistan
US 1st Lt Brandon Smith, right, of the 2nd Platoon of Task Force 3-66, Bravo Company from the 172 Infantry Brigade speaks with young boys during a mission in the village of Hasti in the province of Paktika. The first and second Platoon secured a convoy from Sharana to Kuschamond as part of their mission. Despite the deployment of U.S. and NATO reinforcements, the insurgency in Afghanistan has grown every passing year since it was launched by the remnants of the Taliban in late 2001, after their regime was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion.
Johannes Eisele—AFP/Getty Images
Source: TIME
Pakistan
An Afghan refugee poses at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees registration center on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, on June 20, prior to returning to Afghanistan.
Pakistan hosts a refugee population of 1.9 million. The United Nations sought to debunk what it called “worrying misperceptions” about movements of displaced people, saying that developing countries host 80 percent of the world’s refugees. The United Nations’ World Refugee Day is observed on June 20 each year.
A. Majeed / AFP - Getty Images
Source: MSNBC
Afghanistan
Maslakh (Internally Displaced Persons or IDPs) Camp is named after a once thriving business (Maslakh translates as slaughterhouse). Situated near the western Afghan city of Herat, it is home to more than 350,000 displaced Afghans according to the official count from the time of Taliban rule.
However, international aid organizations conducting a survey of the camp estimate that there may be only around 150,000 inhabitants, but it is certainly the largest such camp inside Afghanistan and among the largest in the world. A new count to determine the exact number of inhabitants is underway to better determine humanitarian needs. A vast camp of mud huts and tents under the Afghan mountains, Maslakh’s temperature plunges below zero at night. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is the coordinating agency for humanitarian aid to displaced people in western Afghanistan. World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF are delivering food, blankets, clothing, stoves, and other items to Maslakh’s desperately poor population.
A young resident of Maslakh Camp takes a drink of water.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Source: Flickr / un_photo
Bagram, Afghanistan
Boys playing with toy guns run into a village alley.
UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
I took a photo similar to this once. I find it incredibly ironic and sad the way that children - whether in peaceful, previously war ridden countries, or countries at war - play war. Why? Why is it that they find playing war of all things, fun?
This is why I take it upon myself to stop them. Have them play with kittens or something …
Source: Flickr / un_photo
Afghanistan
A girl out of place and time. She seems to be a little European girl dressed in Afghan clothing and placed here somehow.
Michael Palmer
Source: flickr.com
Afghanistan
Panjshir man.
The north of Afghanistan is home to ehtnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen, who are lighter complected.
He has such kind eyes…
Source: flickr.com
Afghanistan
This little girl seems to be of Russian / Baltic descent. She reminds me of the actress Milla Jovovich. Her eyes just seem to be so intense.
This picture has taken first place in a Military Photography Contest at Camp Phoenix, Kabul, Afghanistan.
There is just a look of sadness, a look of trials and tribulations I could never understand in this little childs eyes. There is a savage beauty there that brings chills to my spine and a tear to my eye every time.
Source: Flickr / draekane
